Decoding traditional games

FOR the last one month, I've been working to document the memories of people and how they played as children.

- VINITA SIDHARTHA

I've tried to talk to people who are in a wide range of professions, so their perspectives would be different. It was a rewarding exercise in many ways because I discovered that those memories brought smiles to their faces. I also discovered that there is an endearing charm to the memories of childhood. But in many ways, I was also sad. While memories touched on the more well-known common games such as Gilli Danda, the spinning top, marbles, kites, and a few better-known board games, very few people had memories of playing games beyond that.

The wide variety of board games that have been a part of our board game tradition has completely vanished from their memories or were never there in the first place. Instead there were memories of more modern games of 'Trade' and 'Monopoly', and others.